I've heard "green" products companies discuss Earth Day as "Christmas for Environmentalists." Go out and buy, or give someone you love, some organic shampoo, a non-toxic green cleaning product, or a pound of Fair Trade, shade-grown coffee. Now, I'm not one to knock "green" products, but we aren't going to...

Canned tuna is not a product generally synonymous with innovation. The grocery store staple has in fact been relatively motionless in terms of progressive development since the dolphin-safe revolution in the early nineties. It seems that this is beginning to change as more and more tuna brands and retailers are...

Starting on November 16 and continuing for 2 days, 2,000 grassroots organizers from 78 countries occupied Cancun. They requested an audience with Mexican President Calderon and got it. The UN's Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also addressed the group via a recorded video, as did the International Labor Organization's Director-General Juan Somavia.

Social innovation is what the world needs now - and, as I have learned over the years, design is at the center of social innovation.

Whatever we don't like about the world we live in, whatever doesn't work the way we think it should, has, believe it or not, been...

PopTech is often called the "other TED."

This is meant as a compliment, but it's actually a disservice to the gathering in Camden, ME, that celebrates social innovation. PopTech is so much more.

A smaller, more intimate gathering, (650 as opposed to more than 1,500 people);...

Next week, President Obama is sure to note in his speech to Congress and the Republican presidential candidates that US job growth continues to be anemic in the face of an ever-deepening recession. Although we know that small and medium-sized businesses are responsible for most job growth (1), our capital...

"That ... cooperatives have grown so large is somewhat a mystery since, unlike capitalist enterprises, cooperatives are not expansionist by nature ... Capitalist enterprises tend towards growth because increased scale generally leads to greater returns for a concentrated ownership ... Contrast this with the economics of a typical worker cooperative....

While politicians in Washington remain unwilling to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, or force our largest companies to pay their fair share of income taxes, most of the country falls ever deeper into a losing battle to fight off the downward trajectory of their economic survival.

Consider this incomprehensible...

Global climate change, our ever-growing population and social disruption will set the stage for a host of new business opportunities. Some of these have already emerged while others are still in earlier stages of incubation.

Whether you're looking for a new career, an investment opportunity, or thinking about starting a...

We hold in our own hands the key to building a sustainable economic future. Literally. By placing responsibility and ownership into the hands of employees globally, we have the ability to mold an economy that benefits us all.

It's possible by embracing the idea of economic democracy.

Traditionally, economic...

Safe food. Seatbelts. Safety on the job. Clean air and water. A functioning financial system. These are all things that we as Americans have come to take for granted in our daily lives. And, though it has become unfashionable to say so, these are all things provided by robust federal...

Cleveland is a challenging place. It has lost more than 50 percent of its population in the last few decades. When you arrive at the airport you notice gates sitting empty with no planes to unload. Storefronts downtown are boarded up. Unemployment hovers around 25 percent. The streets seem to...

As 2010 came to a close, StrategyOne, an Edelman public relations company, released the results of a survey on the public attitudes toward American business. The results were pretty ugly, but hardly surprising:

• Six in ten respondents said corporate America didn't meet expectations in 2010; seven in ten have...

A new study on sustainability by Accenture and the UN Global Compact* affirms what I have been preaching for the last two decades, that sustainability is critical to a business's future success. The largest study of its kind showed that 93 percent of UN Global Compact CEOs agreed with the importance...

I wonder what it must feel like to be BP CEO Tony Hayward, the most besieged person on the planet and the biggest poster boy for corporate irresponsibility in the wake of an oil spill that's ultimately his personal fault. I won't say that avoiding gigantic misfortunes like the gulf...

On April 15th, Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey introduced the Safe Chemicals Act of 2010, which proposes to bring regulations governing chemicals into the 21st century. Whether the industries involved go willingly or are dragged kicking and screaming remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: the business...

Most companies understand that pursuing a laudable mission can amount to a land of rich opportunity. But to successfully travel the road to corporate responsibility, an enterprise must navigate around six daunting land mines that we discuss in our new book, The Responsibility Revolution.

1....

Fortune magazine released its annual list of the "World's Most Admired Companies" this week, and it's hard to say which is more incredible: some of the companies that made the list or those you won't find anywhere on it.

The ranking, which is based on a survey of...

In the book Bill Breen and I just finished, The Responsibility Revolution, we talk about "missions that matter" as a critical dimension of responsible and sustainable businesses. But one mission we don't discuss is Seventh Generation's.

My own company's mission is "to inspire a more conscious and sustainable...

As the headlines continue to chronicle new lows in business behavior, we have no choice but to rethink corporate responsibility. It's more critical than ever that we discover new ways to get past the greenwashing and lip service and truly put corporate values on par with profits. The costs of...